


brain like a misfired bullet, baby, i'm gonna blow your mind

by questionsthemselves



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Yondu was saved from the Kree, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, But still manages to end up a Ravager, Failcake sex, M/M, Nothing explicit, Ravager style violence, Sex Work, Sex Worker Yondu, Shameless Smut, because learning to be and love with someone else is hard fucking work, people learning how to relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 06:59:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12978594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionsthemselves/pseuds/questionsthemselves
Summary: The Nova Corps may not be great for much - but while growing up in a relocation camp wasn’t rainbows and sunshine it sure beat a childhood as a Kree battle slave. Now Yondu Udonta finally has a place of his own, a job he doesn’t hate, and plenty of shinies to wallow in as he pleases. It takes a headfirst collision with some clumsy, lanky Xandarian, all limbs and fluff and the most ridiculous blue eyes Yondu’s ever seen, to throw an unexpected wrench in his carefully constructed life.In which sex work is just another job Yondu has, and Kraglin is the gawky free-lance mercenary who somehow makes him develop feelings and also get into an Aaskavarian deadlock with some navy-clad jackass of a space pirate.





	brain like a misfired bullet, baby, i'm gonna blow your mind

**Author's Note:**

> This definitely needs more editing but I'm moving cross country tomorrow and then I'm gonna be in the middle of the ocean for month and months so most likely it is what it is. Hope y'all enjoy anyway, and huuuuge shout and and thanks to Resri for cheering me on as I slogged my way through this project - you're the ever best dear! Also huge thanks and rainbow hearts to Write_Like_An_American for their enthusiasm that helped motivate me through this, the edits on the first bits and the writing tips because they're awesome-sauce of awesome. AND THIRDLY hugs to jdrewz for reading and offering comments, and helping calm my pre-post jitters - you're amazing, and I can't thank you enough. <3 <3 <3 xxx
> 
> Lovely art by KarneolVision by at https://archiveofourown.org/works/12976389/chapters/29667666

Stripes of cobalt scrape the fading evening sky, dripping darker cirrus clouds like someone’s clawed it open and left it to bleed. It’s just dim enough the street lamps have begun to flicker resentfully to life, silhouetting the bony knife-sharp edges of Kraglin’s shadow trailing on the ground just in front of him. 

The show room is just ahead of them, gaudy neon sign flickering blithe and ostentatious. The corners of his lips pull up in a grin, and his breath speeds up. He puts a hand on his arrow, finger gently around the head and wets his lips. It’s a ride-or-die, hit-and-run-and-never-look-back kind of night, both of them all in. 

Yondu goes first, stepping up to the guard and sobbing out tales of woe, of being a poor Centaurian refugee desperate for a taste of familiarity. The guard’s sympathetic, but unmoving – he’s payed well enough to be. That’s Kraglin’s signal, and he slips up, skitter smooth as a spider as he slides the knife up and into the guard’s gut, slapping a long fingered palm over his mouth to muffle the death shriek. 

It’s beautiful, the graceful ease of it. Kraglin twists, lets the man drop and grins a mouthful of teeth at Yondu, nodding towards the door. 

It’s nearly silent inside, only the faint muffled shriek of electrocab horns, the steady cacophonic buzz of cities filtering through the walls. 

Draped in stolen jewels, the busts are capped with dummy heads. Their vacant glass eyes and painted-on smiles stare out like they’ve dissociated from their cruel world years ago. They’re grotesquely humorous, and Kraglin’s eyes meet Yondu, and they’re snorting, smothering giggles as they elbow each other with the giddy adrenaline of it all. 

All the shinies glitter and glint in the threads of light reaching in through the shutters. They’re tempting, but Yondu weaves through the stands further back, where the only ornamentations that matter are – the Centaurian ones. 

Yondu thinks he probably should feel some sort of connection, some sort of mooring line that tells him this is part of the home he longs for. He rubs absently at his sternum. 

“Think we can fit ‘em all?” 

“Stuff your pouch full, an’ I’ll fit the rest in my bag,” Kraglin's eyes are feral, hot as the blue light of gas fires. 

They’re only taking as much as they can carry on them, in case they need to run. 

“Hey, what the–“ 

Someone behind them. Yondu's hand slips to his arrow. He flings it crimson into the air, geometric lines lighting up his implant. Before he can send it singing through the guard’s head though, Kraglin's knives slide into his hands. He pounces forward, graceful like a cat catching prey as he opens the man’s throat like silk with one slice, guts him open with the other. 

Blue-black blood arcs onto his face, his chest, and Yondu chest throbs in spike thorns and greed at the sight of it. The body staggers, folds onto the ground as Kraglin pants heavy, watching it fall. He sheathes his knives and then Yondu’s grabbing handfuls of leather and crashing their mouths together hard. 

Yondu’s lip splits open, his blood smearing with the guard’s between their mouths. He laughs giddy and triumphant against Kraglin's teeth. 

“ _Fuck,_ you look good like this,” he pants out, groping lust-greedy and clumsy down Kraglin’s side, to his ass, “C’mon, let’s get the goods and blow this joint so you c’n fuck me.” 

They break apart, stuffing handfuls of loot in bags and pouch. Everything around Yondu – the faint flutter of Kraglin’s breath, sharp metal cutting into skin, the ripple lines of light through the slats –beats itself sharp and tattooed on his mind. 

Then a dark voice drawls out lazy and amused behind them.

“Seems someone’s beat us t’the punch, boys.” 

Every muscle in Yondu’s body is locking tight and coiled as he whips his head around to face the new intruder. It’s a man, looking on first glance like a Xandarian, but no Xandarian Yondu’s ever seen has loops of fire spitting in arcs from their shoulders.

He darts his eyes towards Kraglin’s first, holds them, then throws his arrow high again and hangs it menacingly in the air. 

Whoever this fucker is, he isn't gonna take down the two of them. 

 

 

The first time Yondu meets Kraglin, it’s because he accidentally bowls him over on his way into the best little cafe in this part of town. Yondu’s still vaguely, painfully hungover, and he pushes open the brewhouse doors and stride in sulkily with eyes squinting shut against the painful blare of light. 

It’s warm enough in here make the studded leather jacket he’s got on just a touch too warm, and Yondu unzips it, lets it hang open to show up the glitter of chains and piercings on his bare chest.

And see the thing is normally, people see his blue skin, the strange chunk of red metal welded to his scalp, and the kill-you scowl on his scarred up face and get the fuck outta his way. Doesn’t matter that he hasn’t tipped past the second decade mark when you look like Yondu does, and have the attitude to back it up. 

This gangly stick-insect of boy though doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo, and they collide hard. 

“The fuck, watch where yer going, a-hole,” Yondu grumbles out as he staggers back a step. The boy he hit flails back even worse, almost falling before he catches himself on the back of a chair. Yondu twists his face into a glare, thrusts his chin out obstinately as his hand goes automatically to finger his arrow. But when he looks up the boy’s not glaring back, not yelling, not even looking apologetic – he’s _grinning_. Fucking grinning all feral and delighted like this is the best thing to happen to him all day _._

It takes Yondu a minute to move again because those blue, blue eyes, the danger dusted over the jut of those shoulders, makes something thump hard behind his ribs, spiral down tingling to his toes. 

Weird. 

He shakes it off though. Damn bad luck thats, hitting some damn clumsy scarecrow of a boy just right to elbow his gut, make his indigestion flare up.

“Jackass,” Yondu mutters as he shoulder past him. 

The bored cafe worker is chewing gum slowly, blowing bubbles and popping them, blowing and popping. She knows his usual order, and so only holds out a limp hand in silent request. 

Has it gotten even hotter in here? There’s sweat trickling down the back of Yondu’s neck, down his sides, so he sheds his jacket and lays it grumpily on the counter so he can fish in the pockets for his unit chip. 

Out of the corner eye, Yondu can see that boy is still watching him, hutched in his chair with his limbs drawn up like an Arcturan spider. Yondu’s never seen him before, which means he can’t be a regular unless he keeps even stranger hours than Yondu. 

It also means he’s not likely to run into that gawky collection of brazen amusement and vague threat again. 

 

 

As Yondu’s arrow flies deadly and true the job-stealing interlopers almost as one unsheathe their blasters, freezing them all tense in an Aaskavarian deadlock. Yondu’s arrow spins an inch away from their leader’s eyeball, and all five of the navy-clad stone-eyed man’s lackeys’ blasters are trained unflinching on their chests. Except, their leader… their leader hasn’t moved towards his weapon, because to Yondu’s bafflement he doesn’t seem to have one. What kind of man doesn’t carry at least a backup blaster? There’s something nigglingly familiar about him, about the strange symbol on his chest and the two arcs of flame on his shoulders.

The silence stretches like saphur gum between them for a long moment, no one moving. Then Yondu shifts beside Kraglin, says obstreperously, “This is our take, jackass, we was here first.” 

The man’s eyes widen, startled and then he leaning back on his heels, ignoring the jump of the arrow still twizzling a few micrometers from his face. His teeth are baring in a facsimile of a grin, and he says mildly, “Don’t you know who I am, boy?” 

“I am supposed to?” Yondu raises an eyebrow, ignores the strangled noises Kraglin chokes over. That tells him he probably should be putting something together right about now, but he doesn’t really worry about it. Pompous asses, like this fucker seems to be, always find a way to announce who exactly they are. 

Kraglin starts again to try and say something, but snaps his mouth shut as the sound of blasters being cocked echoes ominously. The man lifts a finger, waits a moment to make sure there isn’t going to be any premature firing, and says as calm as reading out the weather, “My name is Stakar Ogord, and I’m the Admiral of the Ravager Fleet.” 

 

 

It’s Ravager. The ship in the Arapian dock gleaming chrome and azure is definitely Ravager. Words streak in proud gold along it's side: the Starhawk, they proclaim. 

Any space would beg to join, but Kraglin isn't a spacer. He's just some pickthief of a merc, living off whatever jobs mean he’s got enough for the next meal plus a little for fun. 

Lucky for him he's lanky and stretched tall enough he's always looked older than his years. It’s easier to convince clients he’s got the guts for the job when his face is angled older than his barely seventeen years. Won’t be too long though before he’s got enough of a reputation, that looks won’t matter much.

The people who stream from the hanger bay doors of the _Starhawk_ are coated in navy, a conglomeration of humanoids from all over the galaxy. They fan slowly out towards the bars and the gambling rings, towards the best bot houses of Knowhere. 

A little later in the night, Kraglin bets the slower, more soused ones will be ripe for the picking. Maybe he can even get a newer weapon or two out of the deal. 

He runs a finger along the back of the knives in his sleeves. They’re cheap shivs he’s fashioned himself out of broken blades and carefully filed metal, nothing like the sleek Xandar-forged blades he’d buy if he had more than a few units to rub together. 

By the end of the day cycle, he's already collected a handful of unit chips, a few random useless knickknacks, a sweetbar or two, and to his secret thrill not one but _two_ little Arapian throwing knives to add to his collection. 

He's pushing his luck though, hanging around even when he probably should be well gone to enjoy his loot. His mother, stars rest her, always told him it’d be the death of him, that jealous thing always grasping for more, hoarding his loves dark in his chest and hiding them from the world. Something aches a little, just under Kraglin's ribs, and he knuckles at his chest absentmindedly.

"H'lo there, lad.” 

Kraglin nearly jumps out of his skin at the friendly slug to his shoulder. He turns to see a square built man, white dreadlocks swingly dopily as he sways a little on his feet. Kraglin starts to stammer out something, protesting his innocence for whatever this man wants to accuse him of, but then he shakes his head, reaching a paw up to knuckle drunkenly at Kraglin's head. 

"Naw, y'ain't in trouble then, just saw you watching us, thought I'd come over 'n say hullo." 

"I weren't watching, just trying t'get warm, I swear," Kraglin doesn't have the first clue what the man's after and he starts to tense up a little, shifting from foot to foot as his eyes dart around for the most expedient exit available. The knives inside his sleeves are warm, and he slowly starts to slip them into his palms. 

"Whoah, laddie," the man's hand pinches firmly at his shoulder and pulls him around to face him. "Just thought I'd let ya know we're always looking for new crew, 's all. Nothing else." 

Kraglin eyes him suspiciously, shakes his head. He learned long ago not to accept tempting offers from strange men. Besides, joining up with a whole gang of people trying to tell him what to do, and where to go, putting out huffer sticks on his skin to mark in every mistake? He’d had enough of that for one lifetime, thanks.

"Right then," the man releases him, "You ever change your mind, m'name's Tullk, I'm the quartermaster for the _Starhawk_."

Tullk pauses, then as Kraglin starts to edge far enough way he can eel off into the crowd he adds with a wink, "Could use someone with as good a light fingers as yours." 

He'd been caught? Kraglin takes off through the crowd like his hair’s been lit on fire, doesn't stop until he's safely tucked away in the dank nook of a dead-end pipe that's his nest. 

Soetimes later, he wishes he hadn't been so wary, hadn’t been quite so quick to retreat. Being on your own’s all well and good for the most part, but sometimes when he’s hiding from a job gone wrong, bruised up, bleeding and alone, he wonders what it would have been like if he’d taken the Ravager up on his offer. 

But Kraglin's never got on to well with people, always saying one thing and meaning another, promising they're gonna stay and then leaving him behind. He’s doing better on his own.

 

The market crawls with navy-clad spacers with flames on their chest, and Kraglin remembers. Yondu had dumped the dusty remains of the all but empty bag of brew beans on his face this morning, demanding crotchety about how it had gotten that way, and how Kraglin better make damn sure he picked up more today. Kraglin had prudently decided not to mention that it hadn’t been _him_ that had used the last of them. 

It’s been a couple years, but Kraglin remembers those Ravagers. And now he’s older, more world-hardened. Even if he hadn’t met them then, there isn't a merc alive that doesn't know what that flame means. And the fact that it's on his chest, and his shoulders boast gently glowing arches of light? Kraglin definitely knows who that is. 

That man is Admiral Ogord, the head of the Ravager fleet. 

There’s a million reasons a man like him might have made his way to port city like Arapo. Most of them that don’t mean anything any which way for Kraglin. But to come now, when this particular artifact exhibit is being prominently displayed… the timing is suspicious, is all. There isn’t much else new in this particular city, no especial gossip being passed between the gangers or alluring rewards being proffered amongst the mercs. 

It’s not just that though. It’s well known, that the Ravagers are just the right side of nervy to take frequent jobs for the Collector. Not a thing your average procurer goes for after all, dealing with a man nearly as old as the universe itself, and half again as canny.

And the artifacts Kraglin and Yondu are concocting plans to finagle away? Right in the Collector’s wheelhouse. So the fact that the Ravagers are here, that _Admiral Ogord_ is here? It’s enough to make Kraglin edgy. 

This is _their_ loot, his and Yondu’s. The stars-damned Ravagers better not be be after it too. This job is gonna build them a future, get them off this junk-rat madness of a planet and out to the stars. 

He and Yondu had laughed and raged and bled for everything they have and everything they’re willing to try for, and no jackass in blue leather is gonna take it away from them. 

 

 

The second time Yondu meets Kraglin, it’s the next day in the same hole-in-the-wall little brew shop. Yondu slams the door open, relishing the tinny thump it makes as it collides with the wall behind it. A few flyers flutter morosely to the floor, freed of the precarious hold of eons old stick-tack. Yondu ignores them, stomps his feet to shake off the powdery snow clinging to the edges as he stalks toward the register. 

The bitter weather has done absolutely nothing to improve his already sour mood. Last night’s job had been a complete waste of time – some cheap salt of a nouveau riche who thought his sleazy smile and a lavish dinner was enough to get him into Yondu’s pants. 

He hadn’t taken kindly to being told no, and skitters of rage are still teasing at his edges, enough that it takes all Yondu’s remaining energy to manfully resist the urge to punch the next person who talks to him in the face. 

Unluckily for Kraglin, that’s him. 

“Hey!” Kraglin gives him an awkward little wave from where he’s folded his ridiculously skinny limbs into one of the over-plush cafe chairs. For a brewshop as crowded and cluttered as this one, there’s a strange three foot radius around Kraglin’s seat. None of the other low-lifes in the seats around sit with their backs to him, andcarefully avoid leaning an elbow anywhere too close. 

Clearly there’s something more to this fluffy mohawked prick than Yondu knows about. Not that he cares to. Yondu doesn’t care a way about him, not a bit. 

“I think you left your jacket last time ’n I picked it up. Want to come to my place t’get it?” 

Somehow between one beat and the next, Kraglin’s managed to lever himself up and out of the chair and next to Yondu. It’s such a transparent pick up line, Yondu would laugh in his face if it wouldn’t have sent his head throbbing. 

Just his face is enough that Yondu can feel himself making a legit goddamn hiss at him and his stupid blue eyes and his stubbly face and then he’s grabbing his brew and striding out the door. 

Not running away, because he doesn’t do that, especially not from sly flirting twigs he could break if he looked at them wrong. 

The sound of boots scrabbles across the stone floor behind him. Yondu feels a hand on his shoulder, and he’s whipping around, glaring into Kraglin’s face. The stupid bastard’s probably four or five inches on Yondu, so he pushes up on his toes so the intimidation of his glare is more effective. 

“Get yer goddamn hand–“ Yondu realizes just how close their faces are, and he sucks in a little breath between his teeth, loses where exactly he was going with this. There’s way more heat radiating off the skinny bean than makes sense for a man that’s all bone, and Yondu says more weakly “–yer hand off…” and then Kraglin ducks his head, loosens his grip, slides his hand down Yondu’s arm and gives him a grin that’sgoddamn _filthy_ from under the flop of his mohawk. 

Yondu swallows hard around the dryness in his throat, says slowly “…off me, so you can show me proper back to yer place. To grab m’jacket.” 

 

Yondu follow Kraglin back through the winding alleys behind the brewshop. He’s not entirely surprised that Kraglin lives in this particular part of town – the sort of folks that live here are those teetering off the line into the wrong side of the law. 

There’s been valiant efforts to coax the sort of folks with the particular artistic ennui that thought they were special and admirable for living in less desirable neighborhoods. Unfortunately for them though, the denizens here had built up and crusted on like sediment on pipes. None of them were going anywhere or welcoming any center-city newcomers anytime soon.

Kraglin’s apartment is up a set of rickety half rusted stairs, through a slanting doorway decorated with a small rainbow of graffiti signatures. Inside it’s small, dark, carrying none of the softness or knickknacks littered around Yondu's own. There doesn’t even seem to be more furniture than a single chair in the whole room.

What there is instead, is some sort of small furry creature, patchy grey and black with slitted green eyes. 

Yondu tilts his head, watches in bafflement as Kraglin drops to one knee, gathers the merrily squeaking bundle of fur into his arms and nuzzles its fur. 

"Is that–" Yondu starts, and Kraglin turns to face him, all but beaming and holding up a handful of disgruntled claws and suspicion. 

"This is Fluffy," Kraglin says happily, and Yondu says blankly "Fluffy?" because really? This twiggy bundle of blue eyes and determination who somehow has enough of a reputation that no one in that cafe will sit near him, named his cat _Fluffy_? 

Something deep tucked under Yondu’s ribs goes strange and soft at the ridiculousness of it. Completely unpleasant, definitely, not even a bit endearing _._ Better move this along. 

He rolls his eyes exaggeratedly. 

"Now that you've said hello to... Fluffy, you gonna show me where my jacket’s at?" Yondu can't resist leaning down to give a begrudging ruffle of the cat's scruff, if only for the outraged meow Fluffy lets out at the clear affront to her personal space. 

"Course," Kraglin sets the cat down carefully and pushes himself to his feet. "Over here." 

Kraglin leads him over to cut-out nook, a heaped pile of blankets and crumpled up pillows forming a makeshift bed. 

Yondu looks at Kraglin, down at the sorry lump of linens, then back at Kraglin. Kraglin blushes. 

“’S cozy,” he says, then turns hastily away to rustle around a dented metal chest. 

Well, it’s not what Yondu would have chosen, but at this point he’s not gonna press the issue. There’s rustling like beetles running up and down under his skin, heat building as he watches Kraglin spread legged and bent over.

“Hah,” Kraglin holds up Yondu’s jacket triumphantly. Before he can turn around and hand it over Yondu says abrupt, "So, beanpole. Wanna fuck?" 

He's normally not so crude about this, used to clients and charming and wheedling the people he pulls but he saw how Kraglin looked at him in that shop. The man is clearly into him, everything he’s thinking written all over his face.And well, Yondu’s amenable to a little nookie-nookie. Might as well cut straight to the punch. 

Those ridiculous blue eyes of Kraglin’s widen, narrow and then he whips out an arm to grab a handful of Yondu's jacket and pull him in close. Yondu's breath catches in his throat, and he stares up startled as something feral crawls over Kraglin’s face. It’s like a switch has flipped and Kraglin’s voice drops an octave as he says, ”You want that? You been thinking 'bout fucking me?" 

And hell yeah, Yondu has. He tells Kraglin too, grins in delight as Kraglin spins them around to pin Yondu up against the wall. Kraglin doesn't kiss nearly as mild as he looks – it's wet, hungry, a little more tongue than Yondu normally likes but still good somehow in spite of it. 

Time to get a few less layers between them. Yondu gropes at the hem of Kraglin's shirt and rucks it up higher, running nails lightly up to Kraglin’s ribs. Except instead of approving sorts of noises, Kraglin lets out a stuttered squeak and curls abruptly over like a startled pill bug. 

His skinny arms are stronger than they look, and they pin Yondu’s hands to him, pulling them both down as Kraglin collapses like he’s been cut behind the knees. They go down in a tangle of limbs and wheezing as Yondu frantically tries to extract his hands from the knot of bodies. 

The more he tries though the harder Kraglin squirms against him, clamping down on his arms even harder. 

“St-st-ah,” Kraglin’s panting out something, but Yondu can’t understand it through the overlay of gurgles and high-pitched hiccuping. 

“The fuck, lemme go,” Yondu finally gives up on extracting himself, lets himself flops down uncomfortably on top of Kraglin. Pointy elbows and knees jab into his stomach, his thighs. How a man can be made entirely of angles, Yondu hasn’t a clue. 

Kraglin blinks wet lashes, blue eyes big and startled looking at Yondu with something almost like betrayal.

“What did you do that for,” he says reproachfully, releasing his white-knuckled grip on Yondu increment by increment.

“You said you wanted to,” Yondu can feel his cheeks warming, is thankful again that his skin is blue enough that it doesn’t show a blush. “You change your mind or something? Coulda just _said,_ no need t’throw a tizzy fit like that.” 

Kraglin scootches out entirely from under Yondu, tilts his head and pushes out a sullen lower lip. It’s the kind of look that should be ridiculous on a man his age. Yondu clamps down firmly on the rebellious bit of brain matter that thinks it’s altogether too endearing instead. 

“Didn’t say I wanted you to tickle me.”

Yondu blinks. 

“What.”

“I ain’t into that, mighta asked,” Kraglin says. 

Yondu stares, then rolls his eyes hard enough it hurts. 

“Wasn’t trying to tickle ya, numbnuts, trying t’feel you up.” 

Kraglin eyes him for a beat, then says uncertainly, “yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Yondu inches closer, then when Kraglin starts to uncurl nudges at his knee and adds, “How ‘bout we try again?”

Maybe the mood is not so much there anymore, but they had something before it all when tits up. Yondu’s sure their little kerfuffle was just a hiccup –they just need to get things going again. 

He prods at Kraglin’s legs, pushing them flat so he can climb on top and settle himself comfortably over bony hipbones. He plucks meaningfully at Kraglin’s shirt, starts pulling his own off slowly, arching into it and letting his eyes hood. It makes something curl around itself greedily content in his chest when the sight of him makes Kraglin freeze, swallow hard.

Their pants are next. After rolling them down inch by inch, turning so the lights gleams off the blue of his skin, Yondu starts working loose the buckles of Kraglin’s.

“Wait, lube! We need that, right?” Kraglin’s voice is high and anxious, his hands fluttering down Yondu’s sides as his body stiffens. All the confidence that Kraglin had poured into their first kiss though seems to have emptied his reservoirs, unless something else is going on. 

Yondu squints at him, drops the buckle and stops the artfully sexy roll of his hips against Kraglins. "...Yes?" he says, "Don't you have some?" 

“Somewhere, I think,” Kraglin starts grouping around the edge of the blanket nest, fumbling and pawing at the clumps of cloth. Yondu sits back and tries not to feel awkward. 

“Here,” Kraglin finally lifts the half empty tube triumphantly, sits there with it palm up in offering. 

Well, Yondu supposes if Kraglin isn’t gonna do it, he can move things along, open himself up. He ignores the quiet disappointment at that thought, of missing out on those long clever fingers twisting and pressing inside him. 

Oh well. He flicks the cap up, squeezes a healthy daube onto his fingers and braces a hand on the bed as he starts to reach around. He’s interrupted by a quiet surprised gasp of, “o- _oh_ ,” and a hand on his arm.

Anthos help him. What is it _now?_

When Yondu lifts his head Kraglin’s looking up at him like Yondu socked him in the gut. 

“You gonna… you don’t want me to…?” Kraglin bites his upper lip with one silver-capped tooth. 

“You wanna do it,” Yondu tries not to look too eager. “I mean, if you wanna–”

“No, I mean, you’re gonna…” and Kraglin makes a strange little gesture with his fingers that looks vaguely violent. 

Oh. Kraglin had thought Yondu wanted to top?

“What, did you want to?” 

And the thing is, Yondu had figured out within the first few fucks that if he has his druthers, he much rather be the one sticking things inside him than the one doing the sticking. If Kraglin’s that much opposed, he supposes there’s always hands and mouths to try instead. 

“I just,” Kraglin’s fingers are winding and twisting in the faded sheets, “I thought you’d want me to, y’know–“

“Get fucked?” Yondu raises an eyebrow, relaxes down again onto Kraglin’s body. 

“Naw, want your cock filling me up good,” Yondu trails a hand over the jut of Kraglin’s hip, wraps greedy fingers around his dick. He hums happily at the girth filling his hand, gives it a good stroke, “think you c’n do that?”

Kraglin’s mouth drops open and he stares at Yondu, eyes slowly starting to fill up again with that dark heat. Fingers stop their anxious fluttering, dig in like claws on Yondu’s hips groping and squeezing. One finger reaches boldly to trail down Yondu’s crack, pressing lightly on his hole.

“Yeah, gonna fuck you,” he growls, lifting his other hand to twine fingers with Yondu’s slick ones. Yondu slides a finger inside himself, whines as Kraglin starts to twist his fingers in beside it. His hips rut up jerkily, harder and harder until Yondu tips forward, has to brace himself with his other hand. 

He’s got three fingers now, twisting and jabbing into Yondu and there’s the edge of pain where they’re catching against the softness of his insides. It not enough though, Yondu needs more and so he pushes up on his knees, reaches shakily for Kraglin’s cock, guiding it inside and sinking down.

It’s rough and aching, still almost clumsy the way the two of them move together. Kraglin starts up these subvocal little growls that go straight to Yondu’s cock, rakes sharp fingernails across the plush of Yondu’s hips and thighs. 

Yondu needs to come, needs it now and so he braces himself on one hand, reaches down to touch himself with the other. He’s barely touched himself shuddering, coming hard and perfect around Kraglin’s dick.

Kraglin grabs his sides hard enough to bruise, flips him over seamlessly, pinning him down as he ruts into Yondu. It’s almost too much, the scrape of Kraglin against his oversensitive insides. Yondu whines, writhes, until Kraglin’s finally fucking forward hard, one, twice, collapsing down to bury his face in Yondu’s neck. His teeth just graze Yondu’s jugular before Yondu bats him away him a mumbled, “No marks.”

They fall asleep like that, fucked out and drowsy. And when he goes home later, he realizes he’s forgotten his jacket again.

Oops.

 

There’s still the question of Yondu’s job, and although he isn’t that attached he enjoys it and he doesn’t plan to stop for anyone. It’s better Kraglin knows that sooner, so if he’s gonna get all high and mighty about it Yondu can have fun giving him both middle fingers over his shoulder as he saunters away. 

Nobody’s gonna make him feel ashamed of who he is and what he does, no matter how much fun they are in the sack or how cute their stupid scruffy faces are.

He tells Kraglin over dinner. Yondu’s sprawled back, arms hooked over the arms of the chair and he’s definitely not watching Kraglin to see how he takes it. 

Except Kraglin goes almost cross-eyed as he tries to swipe a stray noodle out of his scruff, and then he says, “Oh, okay,” like Yondu just told him he was an investment banker or some shit like that, and Yondu’s narrowing his eyes, leaning forward a little and he says a little louder, “That means I fuck people for money. When I feel like it.”

Kraglin stops trying to rub the last bit of sauce off his face and his fuzzy brows bunch up and he says all confused, “I… figured?” 

Yondu blinks. 

Kraglin placidly slurps his noodles. 

 

Through the whole walk home from the market, Kraglin hasn’t been able to get the sight of the Ravagers filtering nonchalantly through the back streets out of his mind. The handles of the market bags are worn thin, and Kraglin’s glad he didn’t decide to carry the bags of bean by hand. Probably would have burst the bag. 

"Yondu," Kraglin nudges the door behind him closed with his boot, shrugging his dirty grey-brown jacket off and letting it drop onto its assigned hook in the front hall. 

If it had just been him, the coat would have been left to marinate in a smelly heap on the floor, but Yondu gets ridiculously particular about him leaving shit around. Made his hackles get all ruffled up and whatever item Kraglin’s left out unceremoniously thrown in his face. It had only take once with a particular unforgiving boot for him to learn that lesson. 

"Your interrupting m'show," Yondu's lazing over the couch, taking up almost all of it as he arches an eyebrow huffily at Kraglin. Kraglin's inordinately delighted to see what exactly is scrolling across the holoscreen. 

"Are you watching my serial?" he lifts Yondu's feet up to scooch himself under chunky blue thighs. He’s endured enough relentless mockery of the overdramatic serials he secretly favors that there’s a certain amount of smug delight in his voice thatthey'd finally managed to convert Yondu. 

Yondu sniffs. 

"'S just what was playing when I turned it on, not like I meant to watch it or nothing." 

"Uh huh," Kraglin drawls out and then before Yondu can get all cantankerous about it he starts gently massages the knots and soreness from Yondu's thighs. It cuts Yondu off from where he'd clearly about to make another snipe, and he melts into the couch with a contented trill. 

Fuck, Kraglin loves those sounds. Yondu didn't know almost any of the Centaurian language, but he'd been old enough when he’d been taken from his home that the instinctual trills and surprised clicks still had a way of finding their way out when Yondu let his guard down. 

His guard. That reminds him... "Hey Yondu?" Kraglin rubs a thumb along the edge of Yondu's shinbone. "There might be a problem with the job." 

Yondu cracks an eye open, flexes his feet against the arm of the sofa. "What kind of problem, exactly are we talking here?" 

"The kind that might interfere with our heist," Kraglin can feel Yondu's muscles tensing up at that, "Stakar Ogord’s people, y'know the Ravagers? They were in the market today." 

"The fuck...?" Yondu throws an arm over his face, then nudges his legs up insistently into Kraglin's hands in silent demand for him to continue. "Those sons 'a bitches are trying t'get a piece of our cut, aren’t they.” 

It's understandable, really. Centaurian artifacts are becoming rarer and rarer as the native Centaurians slowly find themselves dispersed throughout the galaxy. The Beta-Centauri star system is just too unprotected, too ripe for looting by the Kree, the Skrull, or whatever other warmongering scum with half-decent technology decides to do a fly by. 

The Centaurians that are left, well... they've learned to survive elsewhere, building communities in the middle of more well-defended planets. Others end up as slaves or refugee camps, with some striking out on their own after like Yondu. 

"Means we're probably gonna have to try and rework our plans, move up the time line for sure," Kraglin says. “Just in case they try to slip in and scraper with the loot before we do.”

Yondu nods, hooks a sharp incisor around his upper lip. "It's not gonna be too hard, we've got most of the plan in place. Just gotta arrange a ship off of this rock, in case those Ravager people decided to take it into their heads to come after us when they find it all missing.” 

Kraglin hopes like hell this work. He's ready to be gone from this dirty blaster-shoot out of a town, to have enough where they don't have to worry about making enough units every month. Even with everything Yondu brought in, that not ungenerous amount Kraglin scraped off every job, in a city like this you pay dear for everything you have.

To have their own ship, to be out there, exploring the galaxy, where no one knows their names... it'd be nice, is all. Maybe it’d even be enough that Yondu wouldn’t need to go and pull his disappearing act anymore.

 

 

 

It’s only been four months, and yet somehow everything of Kraglin's has migrated over to Yondu's. Neither one of them had really noticed it happening, but one morning Yondu had woken up late, meandered into the kitchen to start a pot of brew and looked down and oh. That was Kraglin's favorite brand, the nasty bitter black shit, stiff enough to stand a spoon in. The mug he's just pulled out of the corner is covered in frolicking cats, the twee-est thing he bought Yondu for his birthday. There an open half-finished can of that ridiculous neon yellow sludge that Kraglin loves so much on the counter where he must have forgotten it that morning. 

There's sun shining in through the windowsill, sending sparkling rainbows dancing on the countertop where they shine through the dusty bobble collection that's taken up residence there. The noise of the city chugs and rattles outside the window in a cheerful morning cacophony and suddenly Yondu needs to be gone. He sets the mug down carefully, and throws on his well worn jacket, not bothering with a shirt. 

He rides his motorbike through the city, out past the edges of the city and into the broken husks of failed suburbias. The landscape is perfect, stretching out in stripes of yellow and red, both suns beating down hot and orange. He stops at a straggly decrepit outpost, staffed by one bland bored-eyed Krylorian. He fuels up, buys a bottle of some cheap green paint thinner of an alcohol. 

He stays out on the plains, sleeps under the blanket he keeps tucked in the back compartment of his bike, chows on ration bars when he can't ignore his stomach any more, and explores the abandoned building, ancient technologies and structures. They're beautiful, wild and unholy reaching penance to the sky for the scars they'd cut into the earth. Yondu loves them, fierce and hurting. 

When he trudges back home a few days later, there's a single light in the window. He boots open the door when he finds it's unlocked, and shucks his jacket off onto its hook. He toes off his boots as he makes his way towards the couch, but stops short when he realizes that it's draped with six feet of bony, unwashed Xandarian, drooling faintly into the cushions. 

"The hell..." he says, then jerks back as Kraglin flails himself upright, nearly tangling himself in cushions as he windmills for a second, then topples off the couch onto the floor. Yondu starts laughing hysterically, still thoroughly amused that someone as whip-deadly and graceful with a blade as he is somehow manages to fall over everything and walk into walls when he isn't paying attention. 

Yondu plops himself down on the now clear couch, and watches hands laced behind his head as Kraglin untangles himself and props himself upright resentfully. He's looking at Yondu like he can't quite believe he's here, mouth twisted half between a glare and a grin. 

"Yondu..." he reaches a hand up to try and rake his mohawk back into place. "I didn't–um–" He takes a breath and then tries again."You okay, where've you been?" 

Yondu looks away. "Around." 

"Great." Kraglin nods slowly, "Great. Around. That's... fine." 

There’s a beat where it seems like he’s waiting to see if Yondu's gonna add anything to that delightfully insightful statement but Yondu just grunts, lets his head fall back against the back of the couch. 

The thing is, Kraglin's not sure whether to push or not. How do you know these things, with other people? Most of the times in the past when he’s tried, it’s ended with Yondu snapping and snarling until Kraglin's knuckles are itching to plant themselves in Yondu's gut. Probably safer if he doesn't. 

He heaves a sigh, shoves down the sulking resentment swimming around his chest and pushes himself up and onto the couch next to Yondu. Anyone else Kraglin’d already be gone, giving up on this as another useless attempt to make this whole staying around people thing work.He lets his hand rest gently on Yondu's thigh, and then when Yondu doesn't push him away he starts kneading it gently. 

"I missed you," he says softly, cricks his neck and scootches lower until he can bury his face in Yondu's neck. He smells good here, like sweat, and leather and road dust, and that musky cologne he always spritzes on. It smells like home and Kraglin relaxes at the feel of skin against his face, everything in his brain melting into a puddle now that Yondu's here, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. 

“Mighta missed you too,” Yondu mumbles into his neck. There’s a beat, and then quiet enough that Kraglin can barely hear it he says, “Dunno when you started making me need you s’much, y’bastard.” 

 

 

 

“Back off, back _off_ ,” Yondu locks his muscles, blinking fast and forcing himself to keep his arrow hanging steady in front of him through the white noise fog of exhaustion in his mind. Someone’s managed to sneak up on him, someone a whole lot bigger than him, even if they don’t have any visible weaponry.

It’s only been a couple weeks since he’d been kicked out of the relocation colony, with nothing but a credit chip and a ticket to the closest Xandar-run city. The pitiful allowance he’d been given hadn’t lasted long on a planet like Arapo though, and it’d been gone in a couple weeks. 

Tonight’s the second he’s spent shivering behind a stinking line of metal dumpsters. They cut the wind at least, even if they stink to high heaven, and he can put his back to them and keep a wary eye out for anyone looking for an easy mark. 

Not that he's got much to steal, but if someone cottons on that his arrow and implant are made of yaka... well, it wouldn't be much for them to kill him just for the couple thousand units that would net them. 

It’s not likely, but Yondu’s isn’t taking any chances. He’s been spending the nights staring at at the opening to his hideout until his eyes water, trying to make himself stay awake.

"Whoah, whoah, kiddo," the man raises his hands, shuffles back a few steps. "I ain't gonna hurt'cha." 

Yondu eyes him suspiciously, doesn't lower his arrow. He cock his head, sticks out a palm. 

"I'm Horuz, please t'meet'cha," he don't seem at all perturbed that his hand hangs in the air for a minute. Yondu doesn't budge. 

Horuz finally drops his hand. “Whatcha doing back here, kiddo?”

“Not your fucking kid,” Yondu mutters, and he laugh. 

“’S just a nickname,” he rolls his eyes, “You new around here, huh? Come from one of the relocation camps?” 

It’s probably his accent that gives him away, how the words come out drawling like sugarsap molasses, how the words are clipped and just a little too rough. All the brats who’d grown up in relocation camps eventually sounded like that no matter where they came from originally. 

And Yondu doesn’t even know where he comes from originally, just that he was part of spoils raided from a Kree cargo vessel. He doesn’t remember most of his time with the Kree, thank the goddamn stars. He doesn’t know whether he was stolen or sold, but either way the Nova Corps had taken the whole lot of them on that ship and relocated them.

Hah, relocated. It’s a fancy word for taking them and plopping them down in some settlement somewhere, where they’re out of the way enough that the Xandarians don’t have to deal with them, but close enough they can still feel contentedly self-righteous about it all. 

“So what if I am,” Yondu folds his arms, hutches his shoulders up. 

“Gotta job offer for you then,” he slip a unit chip out of his sleeve, start fingering it so it catches the light from Yondu’s arrow, “M’name’s Horuz, and I’m enforcer for the Ironfists, best gangers on Arapo.” 

Yondu’s heard about gangers, heard the stories of the bloody clench they have on the back streets and hovels, the bodies that always turn up in their wake. 

“C’mon, kid,” Horuz’s voice is turning coaxing now, “don’t you want someone t’watch your back, food and a roof over your head?” 

It sounds good, too good, but in spite of that Yondu _wants._ He thinks of being part of something, thinks of not being alone. 

“Think of how long you’ll last out here on your own,” Horuz’s inching closer, “‘you _need_ us.” 

And Yondu’s spine snaps straight as an iron bar. 

“Don’t need _nobody,_ ‘specially not a bunch of gangers that’ll kill be soon as I step a toe outta line,” he grinds out, clenching his jaw until his teeth ache. He _doesn’t_. He’s never needed anyone, he’s survived only in spite and not because of people all too willing to use him up and throw him out and Horuz… well, Yondu knows when an offer’s too good to be true. He’s not gonna be beholden to anyone. 

“Well good luck out there on your own then, kid,” Blithely ignoring the arrow that's still twisting threateningly next to Yondu's head, he claps a hand on his knee. "And last tip, just ‘cause I like your spunk – the top floor of the abandoned buildings are a better place. Might still run inta other street scum but at least the patrollers are normally too lazy to climb up that far." 

He saunter out the alley without looking back, and once again Yondu’s alone.

 

The spoiled slip of a mincing high-blood wails, stomps his over-priced leather boots in frustration as he gesticulates wildly to the Nova officer. 

Yondu grins from his perch on the roof overhead, weaves the chunky gold piercing between his fingers. Lucky for him it turns out the skills he learned in the relocation camps come in handy on Arapo too. 

It warms the cockles of his heart, it does, watching the tantrum of one of the snooty-nosed high-borns who stalk around the world and everything in it will belong to them in perpetuity. He’s gonna hoard this particular particular schadenfreude forever. 

It’s not nearly as hard as he thought it would be either. For all the staffers in the relocation camps had been burned enough by their higher-ups to check out years ago, they were particularly wily when it came to catching tricks by the camp kids. 

The beleaguered Nova officer’s backup has finally arrived. As much fun as this has been, it’s probably time to move along. 

Yondu takes the chunky gold piercing to an only slightly shady piercing parlor, wheedles the price down to a few units and gets it punched into his ear. 

He slowly accumulates a collection of piercings, and a plethora of shinies to put in them. But that first gold piercing, it always stays.

 

Filching keeps his belly full, but he wants more so he uses his charm to finagle his way into a job tending bar at the local swilling hole. After a while it's easy, reading people, figuring out the best way to charm them out of tips and knowledge. It's there he first notices the regulars who always seem to hang out in the same spots, meeting someone new every night and almost always leaving with them. 

He asks his fellow bartender about them. Turns out they make a living spending time and fucking the people that ask for them and they get payed for it, and Yondu thinks _oh, I could do that_ _too._ Because he's good with people, good at knowing what they want and the kind of money for that kind of time? Better than slaving away at the bar counter all night. 

 

The bar stool swivels as Yondu uses his toes to push himself back and forth. 

He's not sure what to expect, this first time. This man he’s supposed to be meeting is the least creepy of the ones who’d responded to his terse holonet ad – not that apparently that was a high bar to cross. Yondu’s had summarily deleted almost three quarters of them within the first few words. 

Some sort of generic moody string music plays just loud enough to smooth over the rough edges of silence, but not loud enough to disturb. Yondu’s picked the bar – a different one than the one he works at, nice without being posh.

Over Yondu’s shoulder comes a mild-mannered “Ahem.” 

He pushes himself around, puts on his cockiest most come-hither grin. The man in front of him isn’t tall, but he’s broad, and taller than Yondu. White dreadlocks swing gently as he settles himself onto the stool next to Yondu’s and he offers a broad pink paw cups the second over Yondu’s hand when he offers it to shake, leans in. 

“M’name’s Tullk,” he grins, waves a hand at the bartender,"Would you like a drink?" Well, Yondu supposes just one won’t hurt. This Tullk better not be trying to pull any tomfoolery with the alcohol though – Yondu’s been working bars long to spot most of those sort of tricks. 

Tullk’s a spacer, turns out, although he seems to want to keep purposefully vague on the details of it all. He’s got stories for days of the shenanigans him and his compatriots have gotten up to and somehow they’ve both gone through their drinks before Yondu even realizes he’s started. 

“Wanna head somewhere more comfortable?” Tullk tilts his head toward the hotel stairs, offers a hand to Yondu and this is it. This is his cue. 

And Yondu’s not nervous, he’s _not._ It’s just new, is all. Suddenly he finds himself wishing he’d done something more than hurried fumbles with other street rats. Will Tullk be expecting some sort of fancy tricks of the trade from him? 

Yondu’s feet thud dull against the plush carpet as Tullk leads him up to the room. He tries to walk more lightly, saunter down the hall suave like he knows what he’s doing, but then he stops. The man’s paying for him, not for some polished pretty boy, and if he doesn’t like that he can fuck right off and find one. 

Tullk swipes a hand past the biolock, rests a hand on Yondu’s lower back to guide him in. The room is perfectly polished, icy cold white drapes and icy slick white linens. It’s cold inside, colder than the bar and Yondu shivers, half turns to Tullk not even sure what he’s going to say. 

He doesn’t have to say anything though because Tullk turns him the rest of the way around, gently pushing him up against the wall, slipping broad hands under the edge of his flimsy slip of a shirt. Both thumbs rub gently at the jut of his ribs, and Tullk leans in, starts mouthing his way up Yondu’s neck.

Tullk smells good, like some sort of fancy earthy cologne. Somehow Yondu had thought he’d smell smoky and grimy, off-putting as the whiffs coming off most spacers at the bar. Suppose this particular one has enough money he can afford to smell however he wants though, if he’s spending it on Yondu and not going for the exponentially cheaper bot-hookers. 

“You ever done this before?” 

Tullk’s voice doesn’t sound hinting for a right answer, only mildly curious, but Yondu’s not sure exactly what answer the man’s expecting. 

“What’dya think?” Yondu tries to figure out where to put his arms, settling them awkwardly at his sides, on Tullk’s biceps, finally loops them around his neck. 

Tullk chuckles, slides Yondu’s shirt up and over his head. He lets it drop, cups Yondu’s head between his palms.

“Wanna fuck you, darlin’.” 

Yondu swallows, licks his lips. 

“Probably work better with less clothes,” he pushes off the wall, unbuckling his pants as he walks towards the bed. He’s never felt quite so strange in his nakedness. 

Better do it fast, like ripping off a plaster. 

“Eager then, yeah?” Tullk presses himself to Yondu’s back, nearly dwarfing him, and Yondu lets him push him down stomach first onto the bed. 

 

He isn’t rough. Yondu made sure to bring a full tube of slick, prepared to push the issue if necessary. It isn’t though. Tullk just gives him a dirty grin when Yondu fishes it out of his pocket, and slicks up his fingers. 

 

The stretch of Tullk inside him hurts. Tullk’s slow though, like he knows Yondu isn’t used to this, this taking another man’s cock. It goes on and on, and Yondu’s eyes squeeze shut and his shoulder blades push tight together. His hands wring into the bedsheets, tight enough to cut off circulation and he makes himself relax into it.

 

After, Yondu doesn’t remember so much how it felt, the weight of bulky muscles and chunk pushing him down into the bed, the wet slide of a cock inside him, the ache in his wide-spread thighs. He mostly remember how it felt for Tullk to be close, held in the cradle of Yondu’s body. He remembers the way Tullk trembled and thrust and lost control on top of him, because of him _–_ and he remembers the way it felt checking the unit chip and realizing he made more last night than in the whole two weeks before. 

That’s it, he decides. No more dealing with drunk, puling spacers in bars that leer and forget to tip. He’s gonna do this instead. 

Sometime’s it’s great, and sometimes it isn’t. There are people paying to tell him how gorgeous he is, to look at him with avarice in their eyes and spread their money on his bedsheets and it makes that greedy, grasping thing in him happy. Sometimes there’s something in their eyes though that makes him shudder, make his excuses and leave and thank the stars that’s the end of it. 

And when it all gets too much, there’s always the open desert highways, as many roads to nowhere as he wants to follow.

 

 

 

A month after the first time, Yondu pulls his disappearing act, it happens again. Kraglin doesn't understand. Things have been going well, he thinks, there hasn’t been any long silences, or scrunched up faces and heated words aimed in Kraglin’s direction. They haven't had a fight. Kraglin's been carefully remembering to not leave his things wherever he drops them. 

The calendar on Yondu’s holopad is blank when he checks, just in case there’s a client meet Yondu had forgotten to tell him about. In fact Yondu hasn't said a goddamn word about anything other than the usual, and so when he up a disappears for six days Kraglin's about ready to pull out his tangled collection of tracking shit and hunt Yondu down himself. 

That night though, Yondu once again comes sauntering through the door, looking only slightly worse for wear, like nothing in the world is wrong. 

"Fucking hell, Yondu,” Kraglin feels like everything touching his skin hurts and he wants to hurl something at Yondu. "You okay, where in th'stars damn galaxy have you been."

Yondu has the gall to look vaguely hurt.

"Don't hafta tell you my every mood, what are you my parole officer now?" 

"That ain't what I mean 'n you know it!" Kraglin starts pulling a little at the skin on his wrist, pinching and twisting, pinching and twisting. It doesn't help. 

"Aw, fuck off," Yondu scowls, flips him off over one shoulder as he trudges towards the bedroom. Kraglin wants to follow up, shake him, make him listen but he knows enough to know what a terrible idea that would be. He won’t let himself hurt Yondu, he _won’t._ Instead, he makes stiff legs move him forward, take him out the door. 

Kraglin ends up on the roof of their building, swinging legs idly over the edge as he stares up at moons rising in a graceful arc across the sky. They're beautiful, crimson and ghostly white lighting the whole roof top up in a icy crystalline howl. It's quiet, his breath fogging hot against his lips and he breathes, sits. 

It’s easier like this, simple, the world forming itself into geometric shapes, equations that always have answers.

He doesn't know how long it's been when he hears the scrape of boots on ice, and then there's a grumping pile of shivering Centaurian plopping down next to him. 

Kraglin breathes in, blows out puff of fog, waits. Yondu swallows with a click against the roof of his mouth, shifts a little, and says, "Didn't mean t'make you worry." 

Kraglin doesn't say anything. 

"I prolly not gonna stop," Yondu's scratching a little at the leathers on his knee, kicks a foot so it bumps into Kraglin's. "It's... I need to." 

And he doesn’t understand it, not really, but he knows how it is needing something the rest of the world will never understand. He thinks on the look on Yondu's face just before he left, the antsy way his fingers drilled against his side, the way he didn’t eat quite so much and drank a little more. 

Kraglin inhales holds it. 

"I know." 

Yondu's shivering is getting worse, but the bastard’s stubbornly not saying a word about it. Kraglin shrugs off half his jacket, slings it around Yondu's back and puts an arm around his waist to pull him in close. Yondu burrows into him with a grumpy little whuff, plastering himself against the heat Kraglin's radiating off. 

"We c'n figure out something,yeah?" Kraglin bumps his head gently against Yondu's, turns to nudge a cold nose against his scalp. 

"Yeah," Yondu mutters.

 

 

 

 

_My name is Stakar Ogord, and I’m the Admiral of the Ravager Fleet._

Kraglin moves puffs out his shoulders, shifts his weight as far in Yondu's direction as he can. Yondu squints a glare at him. He's not exactly helpless here, although it's sweet Kraglin's getting all protective. 

"So then," Yondu voice echoes loud in the held breath silence. "Seems you've got a problem." 

Kraglin's eyes bounce between Yondu and the Ravagers, then he widens his eyes at Yondu like he's trying very seriously to communicate something. Probably that Yondu should stop antagonizing them. Psssh. If there's one thing Yondu's good at it's pissing people off, getting their blood going until they make a mistake. 

He's stubbornly ignore the voice that whispers that maybe that's not gonna work so well on a man that's a captain of captains. 

"After all, it's not our fault you were late to the punch," Yondu shakes his head in mock sadness, "the early bird gets the bush and so on."

There's baffled silence for a moment, and then Stakar says in an uncertain tone that is altogether at odds with his threatening appearance, "I think it's the early bird gets the worm. It's a different saying that has bushes in it." 

"The fuck's a worm? See, this is why you run into problems and end up late to the jobs you're trying to pull, clearly you’re the type to overthink everything," Yondu says brightly, ignoring the choking sounds coming from the men behind Stakar, and the increasingly strained lines around Kraglin's eyes. 

When he glances over at him though, it's clear those lines aren't there though because he's worried – no, Kraglin's trying his very hardest not to burst into full-chested, leg-slapping laughter over Yondu's antics. Of course he is. He may have a bit more of what he calls ‘common sense’ and Yondu calls ‘unnecessary caution,’ but this is the man who offs people for a living.

Yondu stares at him for a distracted moment, feels his chest squeeze in something that almost feels a little like love.

 

 

"Hey boy."

Kraglin's slumped over the bar, drinking a pint of the cheapest swill they've got on tap when some beady-eyed hulk of a gang member saunters up to him. Must be a local, spacers don’t often find their way this deep into the Arapo slums. 

"Gotta offer fer ya," the man plunks himself heavily on the stool next to Kraglin's, snaps his finger at the bartender. 

"I don't want no trouble," Kraglin says slowly. Fuck, he recognizes the symbol on the man's leathers, "but I ain't looking t'join a gang neither." 

Kraglin hasn’t survived this long by getting mixed up in gangs. He might only be seventeen, he thinks, but there's enough other ways to eke out a living on the streets if you're clever. Kraglin’s always been clever.

"Naw, that ain't it," he chuckles roughly. "This is the kinda job, we want someone no one's gonna tie back t'us." 

That doesn’t sound good. Sounds more like they’re just looking for blaster fodder, some street trash flunkie no one's gonna miss. Better get ready to run if this man’s the sort who won’t take no for an answer.

"What sorta job you talking, 'xactly?" 

Kraglin shifts a little further back on the stool, untwists his feet from around the legs. The man rummages a paw around his jacket, pulls out a tiny flask and sets it delicately on the bartop. 

"There's a man, goes by Sticker, comes in here every so often," he drops his voice to a mumble, squints one suspicious green eye around him. "Need you t'find a way to drop this in his drink, and if that don't work, slit his throat." 

Well that's.... not exactly what Kraglin had been expecting. 

“Really. You ain't gonna hire someone that actually knows what they're doing?" he says skeptically.

"Naw, he's too tight with the merc community around here, he'd be able to suss them out, same with our gang," the man reaches into his jacket again, pulls out a unit chip. "You game or not? I c'n always ask the next hard-up street rat that sits down–"

"I'll do it," Kraglin grabs the vial and the unit stick,shoves them down his shirt. 

What’s the worst that could happen? It isn’t like he’s gonna live to old age, in this dying kaleidoscope landscape of city. His mother had gone out from lung-rot, his kid siblings too. Not that it’s a surprise, with the shit-shack of a apartment they lived in. A less hardy species than theirs probably wouldn’t even have lasted as long as they did, living in a place crawling with mold blacker than death. 

He was the freak that survived it, that gets up from the cot stained with coughed up blood and keeps living. 

Lady Luck never smiles on anyone forever. Somehow though, she smiles on him now. Kraglin finds this Sticker character, slips shadow-dark in close enough to drug his drink, slips away again.

 

That one job turns into another, and another. It's not normally knocking people off, more than not it's getting things into places they shouldn't be, standing around making his eyes go big and blue and innocent until people forget he's there and let something spill they shouldn't. 

It works in his favor, that he's all gangly limbs and hair that sticks straight up. Means he doesn't look intimidating. Means people underestimate him. 

Some part of him wonders if he should feel worse about what he's doing. He doesn't hurt kids, and he doesn't spend too long on any one job and that's good enough for him. 

There's something about it too, on the rare jobs he gets to pull his knives, gets to watch skin peeling back that feeds something dark and wild in him. It would take him over if he let it, so he doesn't let it. 

 

 

The first time Kraglin comes back covered in blood is... interesting. Yondu's having a perfectly calm evening, reading the newest issue of the Arapian Daily Mag and sipping a cup of tea. The door swings open and in shuffles a wild-eyed Kraglin, blood smeared red on his hands and streaked down one side of his neck. 

How he got back to the apartment without someone asking questions, Yondu has no idea. He looks nothing like his scruffy, wet-eyed cat-fur covered normal self and Yondu feels something hot flush up his spine at his mild-mannered fling looking like he wants to sink his teeth into something and shake it until it submits. 

Well, Yondu’s never been opposed to someone getting a little toothy in bed.

“Job go wrong?” he says casually spreads his legs a little, can feeling himself getting hard as Kraglin brings all that focus in on him. 

Kraglin bares his teeth, and Yondu adds, “Or job gone right?” and lets his knees fall even further open, slouching down a little until his cock’s pressed against the thin synthwool of his sleep pants. 

Heat flushes up Yondu’s neck as Kraglin prowls forward, something almost graceful in his lanky body. He stops between Yondu’s spread legs, stares down at him like he wants to eat Yondu alive and Yondu sucks in a shaky breath between his teeth. 

“Well,” Yondu smirks, “just gonna stand there?” 

And Kraglin lets out a hissing growl that goes straight to Yondu’s cock, snaps a handful of shirt and pulls Yondu abruptly to his feet. Before he can even blink Yondu’s being twisted around, and a foot to the back of his knees has his crashing down painfully to the floor. 

He falls to his hands, then Kraglin’s weight drops on his back, teeth latching hard onto the sensitive skin of his nape and biting in. 

“F- _fuck,_ ” Yondu spits out, head dropping down and back arching. Kraglin knocks his elbows out, forcing his upper torso down and then starts rolling his hips like he’s trying to fuck Yondu right through his sleep trousers.

“C’mon, lemme,” Yondu squirms, tries to push reach back enough to push his pants down but Kraglin just scoops both hands up, forcing Yondu onto one cheek as he pins them in the small of his back.

It knocks the breath out of Yondu and he lets out a silent gasp, feels all his muscles go limp as Kraglin digs his teeth in harder. He’s never been like this, never just held Yondu down and taken what he wants. It’s makes something in Yondu go all jelly-like and wobbly and he’s arching harder into Kraglin and writhing against him. 

“Need it, _please_ Krags,” his voice is coming out all high and breathy and needy, but Yondu can’t seem to care, just mewls his approval as Kraglin finally lets go of his neck, yanks Yondu’s pants down over his hips. 

There’s the sound of a cap clicking open, and then two fingers are shoved into his hole, twisting, roughly opening him up. It’s barely a minute before Kraglin’s pulling them out, and Yondu feels the tip of him, just rubbing, and he shoves back trying to take him in. 

Kraglin doesn’t make him wait anymore. One hand spreads Yondu open for him, and he’s pushing in deep, grinding right into Yondu in slow, sweet pulses, over and over. 

The feel of Kraglin fucking in deep, the throb of the bite on his neck, the iron tang smell of the blood smeared over his wrists, it’s all too much and much sooner than he likes Yondu’s curling forward, everything arching tight as he comes.

 

"So, you wanna tell me what that was all about?" 

They're sharing a huffer, passing it back and forth lazily and building a swirling cloud of smog in the air over them. 

"Just a job gone bad," Kraglin shrugs, lets an arm flop over the side of the couch to grab a bottle of whatever stupidly expensive liquor Yondu's put there. 

"So you're what, a hitman?" Yondu props himself on one elbow, blows a cloud of smoke right in Kraglin's face and cackles at the way he wrinkles his nose and hacks. Kraglin pushes him flat in retaliation, swings a leg over him to sit smugly on Yondu's stomach. 

"Naw, mostly freelance merc jobs, petty shit." Kraglin feels Yondu hardening again against his ass, rocks a little against it just to watch Yondu's face wrinkle up in frustration as he grabs needily at Kraglin's hips.

"This one's just wrong place wrong time, was only supposed to deliver something and the hired muscle showed up." 

"Lookit you, big bad killer," Yondu teases as he finally gets enough leverage to grab Kraglin's arm and flip their positions, "gonna fuck me hard, show me who's boss?" 

Kraglin knows Yondu's just joking with him, but with the scent of blood still coating his nostrils, the feels of Yondu rolling his hips just right on his hardening cock makes him growl. He digs blunt fingernails into Yondu's skin, holds him still enough he can line up, and pull Yondu down on him hard. 

"Uhhhh, fuck," Yondu's eyes are squeezed shut and he's braced over Kraglin, drops to one elbow when Kraglin manages to hit his sweet spot just right. 

He's still all wet and loose from earlier, come and slick dripping down his thighs and Kraglin cranes his head to latch sharp teeth onto the sensitive crook where neck and shoulder meet. 

He hisses out, "Mine," against Yondu's skin, knows somewhere deep in the fog clouding over his reason that they've never talked about it, never made any promises to each other. Before he can try and take it back, Yondu strikes fast as a spider to sink his pointy metal capped teeth into Kraglin's shoulder in return, growls back, "Then _you're_ fucking mine.”

Yondu rides him harder now, pushing demanding down to meet Kraglin's trembling hips. Kraglin whines high and shaky, nodding as much as he can without letting go of his mouthful of Yondu. Everything is spinning sharp and hot as he worries his mark deeper into Yondu, lets go to worry another one higher up. It doesn’t matter that Yondu will be taking a dermal regenerator to them later, because now, here, Yondu’s his. 

 

After, Yondu rubs gently at his bite mark, worrying along the grooves of it as Kraglin dozes, fuck-drunk and dazed with the perfection of it. He remembers the first time Kraglin had held him like this, how he'd been humming a little under his breath just like this.

"I mean it," Yondu says into Kraglin's skin, "you better not fucking leave me.”

 

 

 

Yondu’s still thinking idly on Kraglin, that night after their first time as he gets ready to go out. It shouldn’t, it wasn’t even _good_ sex, but he’s never laughed like that before in bed, never had it go from awkward to perfect, just like that. 

No. He’s got a job to focus on, something routine and comforting to take his mind off things. A spacer with too much money and just enough time had pinged his message box, offering him exactly what he’s looking for and nothing that’ll take too long. 

Yondu slips on his silk and lace, leather pants and jacket open enough to show off the piercings studding his nipples and the line of his pouch. Before he goes, he shoots a message to Kraglin’s pad, going into great detail all the things he can’t stop thinking about doing to him. 

He smirks as he imagines the way Kraglin’s beaky face’ll go all bright red. He seem the blushing type. After a second, Yondu sends him a second, tells him he’ll swing by around midnight, and head to the hotel bar. 

 

“Nice." 

The man eyes him up and down, smirks, and something about the twist of his lip lights up something warning and alert in the back of Yondu's head. He grins though, lets his legs sprawl open in the seat. 

The compensation for this one was generous, and he hadn't pinged any of the background searches Yondu had put his name through. There's something about him though... something in the back of his eyes, in the way his fingers pinch just a little too hard on Yondu’s shoulder.

Yondu follows him warily up the stairs, towards the room. It’s not until the man reaches to swipe his access card against the lock though, that his coat rides up just enough Yondu can see the silver gleam of a knife. 

Yondu stops dead, feels the tingle of adrenaline starts to thrill down his veins. 

"I said no weapons," Yondu's voice in unyielding, and he pinches his shoulder blades together enough that his jacket hangs free, giving his arrow enough room to slip out from under if needed. 

"Aw, but where's the fun in that?" The man's face is cruel, triumphant as he reaches a hand to unsheathe the knife and swing around to face Yondu. “Just like a little pain with my pleasure sometimes." 

Yondu breathes in, whistles out low and clear. His arrow slips free of his jacket andwhips up and around to twist slowly in front of the man's slack and astonished face. 

"So do I, asshole,” Yondu says congenially, "But not with a fucker like you." 

He lets his voice drops and his arrow move a micrometer closer."Better clear outta here and not come back." 

Yondu waits in the hallway after the man leaves, lets the rush trickle giddy out of his veins. When he walks back on to the streets, the cold runs in through all the edges of his clothes, turning his skin icy and damp. Damn icicle of a city. 

It’s the hour of the morning where everything turns to shadows, distorted and menacing and wildly, but Yondu he feels like needles, doesn’t want to go home. 

It’s almost midnight when he ends up in front of Kraglin’s window, not knowing quite how he got there. When he jitters a knock on the flexiglass window Kraglin looks up surprised from where he's half draped over the arm of the couch, watching some sort of cheesy holoserials. He lets him in though, head tilted in silent inquiry.

“Out with someone, wanted something I wasn't offering," Yondu says shortly. 

Before he can overthink what he’s doing, he pushes Kraglin towards the back of the couch until he can mould himself imperiously to Kraglin's front. He grabs the arm that's not holding the holopad and drapes it around his middle. Kraglin radiating off warmth like a boilerplate, warmer than anyone he’s ever been this close to before. It’s ridiculous, is what it is. 

"You wanna..." Kraglin starts but Yondu shakes his head, says, "Shhhh, sleeping now,” and kneads a little at Kraglin's arm to shut him up. It works and Yondu hums happily, lets himself drift off feeling unshakably, weirdly, safe.

 

 

Eventually Kraglin just ends up moving the rest of his things in with Yondu. The extra room means Kraglin somehow ends up with another cat, Yondu doesn’t understand it, he really doesn’t, how small furry things seems to have a Kraglin-shaped radar for finding him when they’re looking their most pitiful. 

“You better not end up bringing any more of these little shits home,” Yondu’s all tangled up in Kraglin on the couch, a blanket pulled up trapping the ridiculous amount of heat Kraglin for being someone all bony angles and fuzzy scruff. He’s supposed to be meeting a client tonight, but somehow he just can’t bring himself to move. 

“Well I couldn’t leave Bootsy where she _was,”_ Kraglin says indignantly, “I’d just offed her shitbag owner.” 

“ _Bootsy?”_ says Yondu helplessly, so Kraglin adds brightly, “Yeah, when he was laying on the floor all twitching she kept batting at his boots. Bootsy,”it’s such a ridiculously Kraglin thing to say that Yondu’s grabbing his collar and pulling him down and kissing him and kissing him and _oh_ , he thinks. 

He breaks away just enough to look up at Kraglin and he says slowly “I… think I maybe like you. A lot.” And he can feel his face warming and fuck, this is why he doesn’t do this, and his brows are beetling together and he’s about to use his grip on Kraglin’s collar to push him back when he says, “…I like you a lot too. and stuff,” and that’s that. 

The food staying warm in the thermoshelf goes cold but neither of them care, even later when the cats pad up the blankets to knead their faces because in the frenetic stumble for the bed they’d forgot to feed the little bastards. 

Yondu only just remember to ping the client before they’re supposed to be meeting. There’s a sulky message pinged back to his pad, since he’s one of Yondu’s regulars. Somehow though, when he snugs in tighter to Kraglin, he doesn’t care about it at all.

 

 

It’s not one moment specifically, when Yondu decides that maybe it’s time to let this whole escort thing go. In the end, it’s not one thing at all, really.

This particular client has been a regular for a while, a frizzy white-haired Xandarian high up somewhere in the Nova Corps officers. He's a sweetheart, really, always make sure to bring Yondu back different bits of fancy bling when he's sent to other planets on business. 

He likes it very traditional - spoils Yondu with a dinner at one of the more upscale places where Yondu gets to smirk and sprawl at the way all the high-borns hide faint gasps of shock behind their dainty cloth napkins, whispering to each other behind dainty gloved hands. 

Thumbing the nose at everyone who thinks he a backwards hick that shouldn't be here? The best. After when they're back, Yondu spread out on some ridiculously soft sheet, the man moving slowly and determinedly between his thighs. 

It's all very... boring, really. 

Yondu's thighs are starting to ache a little, and he shifts, flexes his toes to try and ease the cramps. It doesn't do much. The thought drifts through his mind that he wish he'd remembered to set the lube within reach, because it's starting to chafe just enough that Yondu knows he's gonna regret not having more in the morning. 

He can feel the man getting close though, knows if he moves now it means a repeat and probably another twenty minutes of slow, repetitive sex and tonight Yondu just wants to go home and take a hot bath and catch up on the lastest gossip in the Daily Mag. Maybe curl up with Kraglin on the couch after, cause he knows that comes with a cup of tea made just the way he likes it to sip while they do… something that might be called cuddling, if Yondu liked to do things like cuddle. 

The client’s whispering sweet nothing into his neck, telling him of the gifts and trinkets he picked up for Yondu, but for once Yondu can’t pay attention, just… doesn’t care. 

When he gets home that night, walks in the door and Kraglin's bopping to some strange music that sounds like someone sawing on wood and screeching while they do it, stirring a pot of one of his experimental soups, Yondu's chest gives a strange little thud. 

Yeah. Maybe it's time to find something else to do. 

 

Luckily for him, he hits on the perfect idea the next day. 

"Kraglin!" Yondu bellyflops on top of Kraglin's back, delighting in the wheeze it crushes out of him. "I gotta idea." 

"Oh no," Kraglin's voice is muffled in the bedspread, and he stops trying to bat back at Yondu and buries his face more. "Stop that, no ideas for you." 

"Aw, you love my ideas, admit it," Yondu grins smugly and settles himself more firmly on top of Kraglin. "I only have good ideas." 

"Riiiiiight," Kraglin flops his head onto the side, pushes the holopad he'd been watching to relative safety. 

"Why just remember a couple nights ago when you said you didn't wanna try the cuffs, and then we tried the cuffs and–"

"Alright, alright, alright," Kraglin cuts him off hastily, cheeks going a delightful shade of blue. "Some of your ideas are good ideas." 

He's still squirming a little bit under Yondu, which is starting to give Yondu even more ideas of what else they could be doing in bed other than talking, but he shakes himself, focuses in on his brilliant plan. 

"So there's this shipment coming in, see," he slides off Kraglin's back, starts dancing his fingers happily up and down Kraglin's arm, "And it's Centaurian artifacts, for the museum, really old preservation shit, that goes for a lot of money if we could get it off planet." 

Kraglin rubs at his eye. "Right, because we've pulled so many successful heists."

"No, but c'mon!" Yondu enthusiasm isn't dampened at all by Kraglin's skepticism. "You got the planning skills, I know you from your jobs, and I've got the charm and people skills and–" Yondu holds up a finger "Imma Centaurian. It c'n be our angle to get close, y'know, that I'm just a poor, lonesome hick longing t'look at a piece of home. It's brilliant!" 

Kraglin rolls his eyes. "I dunno about brilliant." He's chewing his lip though, the way he always does when he's thinking hard on something and Yondu squirms eagerly. If they can get even half as much for that junk as his quick search said he could, they'd be set for a whole year. Maybe even enough to hitch a ride on a ship, go galaxy-hopping. 

When Kraglin doesn't say anything, keeps thinking, Yondu lets out an exagerated sigh and starts poking at Kraglin's chest. 

"Krags. Krags. Krags. Krags. Krags–" 

"Alright!" Kraglin bats him off, tussles with him playfully until Yondu has to give in and get him pinned underneath him. "Fine, we'll look into it." 

Yondu stares down into Kraglin's eyes, lets his knees slide to either side of Kraglin's hips. Kraglin's breath catches in his throat and the pupils in those big blue eyes of his start to blow. Yondu smirks dirtily down at him, starts shift back and forth, little movements that drag their cocks against each other. Kraglin's hands are still pinned under Yondu's, and Yondu laces their fingers together, keeps them there as he starts rolling his hips, grinding down firm onto Kraglin.

“Been thinking about this all day,” Yondu ignores the needy whine Kraglin makes at that, “woke up with you gone, had t’get finger myself full ‘cause you weren’t there t’fill me up.” 

Kraglin strains against his grip, bucking his hips hard. 

“Yeah, you like that?” Yondu croons smug, rocking back and forth slower now, as Kraglin snaps his teeth in frustration before going limp. “Like the thought of me all needy, fucking myself on my own hand thinking about you?” 

Lifting himself up enough to slide his pant down, Yondu gropes for Kraglin’s cock, palms it roughly through his underwear and then reaches in to pull it out, adds “Y’know I’m still all dripping from it.” 

Yondu pushes himself down, savoring the reedy wail Kraglin makes as he bottoms out. 

“Thas it,” Yondu lifts up, drops, lifts up and drops, slowly moving faster until Kraglin’s eyes are squeezing shut and he’s making these heady little hiccuping gasps. “so good t’me, letting me have you like this.”

Yondu doesn’t tease him anymore, fucks himself down harder until Kraglin’s eking out his name between clenched teeth and filling him up. 

They curl together on the bed, no place to go, nowhere to be, Yondu’s face tucked snug into Kraglin’s neck and Kraglin’s hand resting on his heart. 

 

 

When Yondu looks back at Stakar, the bewilderment on his features is rapidly starting to twist back into a scowl and Yondu decides this has gone on long enough. Time to blow this joint, and make for home. 

"Well this has been fun 'n all," Yondu breathes in deep, wets his lips, "But I think it's time to shake hands and part ways, savvy?" And he's whistling sharp and true until his arrow closes the inch until starting to press hot to Stakar's forehead. 

But something's happening, the dull arcs of light on Stakar's shoulders suddenly flare white hot and sparking, his eyes lighting up with the same unholy fire. There's a ball of the same white flame glowing in his hand and with an idle raise of his eyebrow he reaches up with the other and just. Plucks Yondu's arrow out of the air. 

"Yaka, hmm?" he muses, "Unique sorta weapon you got here, son. Haven't seen anything like it before," and he's looks up slyly from under the bushy wing of his eyebrows like he's sharing a secret, "An' I've seen a lot."

Yondu blinks, clamps his jaw shut to keep it from falling open. No one's ever been able to touch his arrow when it's glowing. _He_ doesn't even touch his arrow when it's like that. But this man can.

Who _is_ he? 

"So tell ya what," Stakar says to Yondu, all conversationally, "I like you. Ain't often someone has the balls to talk to me like that. I'll let you go, and even make you an offer at the same time." 

Yondu trades a glance with Kraglin. He'd given it his best shot, but this man clearly was a league above. This wasn't one they could have a chance of winning. 

"If you want," Stakar continues, "I'll take you on. The both of you as Ravagers, as part of my crew." 

And with a last mildly curious look at it, he lets Yondu's arrow go back into the air. 

“Leave the knapsack on the table, son,” Stakar leans back on his heels, grins. “An’ if you decide t’take me up on my offer, the _Starhawk_ is leaving from the main docks, bay eleven. Don’t be late.” 

 

When they get back to the apartment, Kraglin locks every one they have on the door, and then makes sure all the windows are shut for good measure. He double checks that the bug jammer is pulsing steadily, and then he turns to Yondu. The look on his face though... it ain't exactly what Kraglin was expecting to find. 

"Hear that, Krags? We gonna be Ravagers, biggest and baddest space pirates in the galaxy," Yondu crows, "an' not just part of any Ravagers, we're gonna be crew to an _Admiral_." 

Kraglin stares, and then flings his hand out with a whistly little sound of frustration. 

"Except, no," he all but yells, "the fuck Yondu, we need to lay low until Ogord and that whole crew of his are long gone." 

Of course Yondu wants to join up with them. Of course he does. There's something restless and unsettled in his core, something that even on the quiet lazy days doesn't seem quite.... content.

They stand facing off. Yondu's shoulders are all bristled out, fists clenched at his sides. Kraglin feels like something plucking apart the stitching at his seams, unraveling everything he's only just shakily sewn together. 

"Yondu, what we have here..." Kraglin swallows, "it's good, we're happy."

He looks down. 

"I thought we were happy." 

"Aw Krags, no," All the anger leaks out of Yondu like someone's poked a hole in the center of it. "Thas not... just, it's the _Ravagers_. Stealing shit and shooting things. We'll be able to see the galaxy, all those far off worlds, and treasures and peoples." 

Yondu's always wanted something more, there's something about him that seems meant for something more. But joining up with a group – even if it’s a group like the Ravagaers.

Kraglin pushes his sweat-tinged hair off his neck. "We won't be our own people, y'know, we're gonna have to go where he tells us, steal what he says."

"Until I make captain," Yondu says, with absolute unconscious confidence in his face. 

"Really," Kraglin's voice is flat. “Captain.”

"I'm gonna be a captain, have m'own ship," Yondu sounds surprised Kraglin would have thought anything else. "We gotta follow that Admiral’s rules for now, but we'll get to go where we want, do what we want, an’ have all the connection and reputation that Ravagers have.” 

Kraglin isn't convinced. 

"And Krags... you don't have to fight alone anymore, there'll be people at your back, people t'bail you out when shit goes wrong," Yondu face goes serious, and then he looks away. There's a pause, Yondu flexing his hands like he's working himself up to something and then bites out, “Not like you’re invincible neither." 

Oh.

_Oh._

Kraglin's head goes all floaty at that, the way it does every time Yondu gets over his aversion to saying ‘sentimental bullshit’ and says things like that. He shuffles a little closer to Yondu, waits for him to not move away and wraps arms around his waist and buries his head in Yondu's shoulder. 

Something pokes sharp into his abdomen and he leans back, looks down in confusion.

“Oh right,” Yondu sticks a hand down his pouch, rustles around before pulling up a glittery handful of Centaurian trinkets. “Bastard may have got the rest of it, but he didn’t know I had this. Gonna use this to start our own little fund, outfit our ship really pretty.”

Kraglin can almost imagine it now. Both of them wrapped in bristling spiky leathers, probably red because Yondu would be the one choosing the colors after all, standing shoulder together on a ship. Their ship. 

Besides, in the end is it really a choice? If Yondu’s going, Kraglin’s going with him.

"Okay," he says muffled into Yondu's shirt. "Okay."

Then when Yondu slumps into him he adds, "But only if we can take the cats." 

And Yondu's snickering helplessly, knuckling a little against his ribs. "You and your damn cats," he says, but he doesn't say no. 

 

Thankfully for both of them, turns out ships cats are a thing. 

"Fine by me, keeps the vent critters away," Stakar says cheerfully when they show up at the docking bay the next day, everything important they own slung on their backs. Both the cats have been bundled and bearded disgruntled into a re-purposed crate, held tight in Kraglin's white-knuckled fist. 

At Stakar’s shoulder is a glittering Pluvian, just a hint of long-suffering around the edges of his placid facade. Stakar gestures to him, says, “Follow Martinex here, he’ll show you to crew quarters.” 

He looks like the f’saki that got the orloni, and the look almost makes Yondu want to turn around and march away again. 

They don’t.

They walk up the the gangplank together, and Kraglin sneaks a hand out to squeeze Yondu's briefly before pulling away as the _Starhawk_ looms gleaming and behemoth around them, like the grandest sort of destiny. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> comments are love, y'all <3


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